


Tuesdays with the Tardis

by Breanna_B



Category: Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 06:37:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17462474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breanna_B/pseuds/Breanna_B
Summary: "I got used to seeing the blue box every Tuesday, and began to make a game of guessing where it was likely to be. Side alleys, demolition sites, next to the big concrete bus shelter at the busy crossroads. I began to notice things about it, like how it was always level regardless of the surrounding terrain, and it seemed to have its own weather, or brought the weather with it when it landed."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first complete fic in this fandom. We'd all like to meet the doctor, wouldn't we?

The first time I met him was a Tuesday. The first day in months that I'd had any time for myself. The storm at the weekend hadn't quite blown itself out, and the wrinkled grey-green leaves were gusting under the trees and around the bench I had come to rest on. There was a dampness in the air that promised more rain, keeping most people indoors, and the only sounds beyond the background hum of traffic were the occasional mournful duck, and the swish and clatter of leaves.

I hadn't noticed him until he sat on the bench next to me, taking up his half but leaving space enough between us that I didn't feel threatened by his closeness. I glanced at him, as he sat with a sigh, saw only the grey hair and lined face. A fancy jacket that was perhaps not quite warm enough for the biting wind. I turned back to my own business of watching the ducks avoiding the pond.

“I went to Gallifrey, but it wasn't there.” His voice was deep and resonant, but cracked with emotion as he spoke. “I went to stand on the soil that was once my home, but all I saw were stars.”

“That sounds like poetry,” I commented quietly, “it reminds me of 'the Lake Isle of Innisfree'.” He was hunched over when I turned to look at him, head in hands, elbows digging into his thighs, staring at his boots. He looked up, and as our eyes met I saw such pain. But only a glimpse, as his gaze slid off almost immediately, as though holding eye contact was like trying to push the poles of two magnets together.

He was suddenly animated and stood, lecturing like a professor. “Ah yes! William Butler Yeats, wasn't it?  
'I will arise and go now, for always night and day  
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;  
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,  
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.'”

He came to rest standing at the edge of the pond, as though his clockwork had run down with the end of his quote.

I rose cautiously and approached, treading lightly and speaking softly.

“Gallifrey, did you say? That sounds like somewhere in Ireland.”

“In Ireland? Yes, it does sound like that.” He sulked like a teenager, staring at the steel grey water.

“You sound Scottish.'

“Scottish?” He scuffed at the lose stones on the tarmac, “Yes, Scottish. I'm Scottish.” He seemed unable to answer me without repeating the salient word in the sentence.

I turned away and lifted my head to scan the horizon. The park was empty, the cold having kept most sane people away. I realised that I was plotting my exit when he reanimated.

“Come with me.”

“What?” I backed away from him slightly, social norms dictating that I still try and be polite even as I was desperately hoping he wasn't about to do something dangerous.

“Come with me to Gallifrey. Perhaps I got the co-ordinates wrong. Maybe its just nearby. Come with me and help me look.”

He had closed the gap between us that I had made, and was reaching out to me when I was rescued by a dog. A little yappy dog on an extending lead. We danced around each other, avoiding the affectionate creature and trying not to get tangled in the near invisible cord, and I took the advantage and spun around, my momentum flinging me away, running across the grass, up the hill to the main road.

I stopped when I reached the busy stream of passing metal vehicles, the first few headlights on in the gloom of the afternoon.

I tried to think no more of the mad scotsman in the park, yearning for his home.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time he met me was a week later. Last week's respite had been a success, as far as these things ever can be, and we'd decided that Tuesday afternoons were the best time. I had gone for a walk in the park again, not knowing what to do with myself, still not able to just switch off and relax.

The weather was kinder this week, and the benches were all occupied with people enjoying the gentle, last heat of a mild autumn. I kept walking and found myself out of the park proper and heading down the gentle slope to the riverside walk.

I saw him before he saw me, high up on the bank, behind the fencing that divided the council run park from the dumping ground of the scummy river. He was darting to and fro along the fence-line, his gaze briefly searching for a way through at either side, before being drawn to a spot on the ground just a foot or so away from him, on my side of the fence.

I paid little attention to him at first, trying to ignore him, if i'm honest, but I saw him get down on the ground and attempt to get his arm through the narrow gap, trying to reach for something. I saw his hand desperately trying to grasp for something just out of reach, and I stopped to ask if I could help.

He didn't seem to recognise me, and was surprised at my offer. He carefully withdrew his arm, though still managed to scrape it on the hard edges of the metal-spike fence, and glanced at all the other passers-by, as though judging those who were studiously ignoring him.

“I've dropped my key,” he said mournfully, “Its just there, but I can't reach it.”

I had to climb up onto the retaining wall to reach the part of the river bank he was on. The grey-blue bricks beneath my hands were cold and smooth, and the sharp edge dug into my tummy as I hauled and scrambled up. I could see the key easily as I stood upright on the sloping ground, silver shining in the autumn-deadened undergrowth.

It was cold when I picked it up, cold like frost and ice, and hard, craggy rocks. Cold as despair and loneliness, the vast emptiness of space and the distance of time.

I found myself still holding it, paused for I don't know how long, face to face with the grey-haired stranger, separated by the slats of metal. For some reason I was reluctant to hand it over.

He did nothing but stand and watch, his anxiety of just a few moments before apparently now gone. He stood patiently.

I don't know what he thought of me, as I debated giving the key to him. I had no evidence the key was his, beyond his word for it. But I suddenly realised I had no reason not to believe him, other than my own surprising reluctance to part with it.

I reached out hand handed the key over, the relief clear on his otherwise well-schooled face.

“Have a good journey,” I told him, as though I was handing over car keys.

He had turned to go, but looked back at me with a quizzical look on his face. He frowned momentarily, then gestured goodbye, and left.

I didn't stay to watch, to see if he turned again and looked at me with those curious eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

The week after the key incident, I met him again. In the park, again. I still hadn't found anything else to do with my free time and was walking up the slope away from the bandstand when he came rushing out from a foot-worn track where people had made a short cut through the bushes.

He was full of energy, and was speaking nineteen to the dozen, “Ah! There you are! I couldn't find you, but now, you're here!” He turned and scanned the area as though noticing where he was for the first time. “Of course you'd be here, where else would you be? Tuesday?” He turned back to me and I noticed an uncertainty in his otherwise confident persona.

I couldn't help but stare at his face, and for a moment he held my gaze, but then backed away in embarrassment. He started to reach for his face, to rub at his singed eyebrows or ruffle his startled hair, but he aborted the movement, and I noticed his hands.

He had been holding his hands out of sight, stiffly, to stop them touching anything, but now I saw them and I grabbed hold of his lower arms and turned his wrists so I could examine him. His hands were red-raw, burned or scalded by the look of things. He surprised me by remaining still as I held him, and I felt the thrum of his energy calming as we stood there. I could feel the warmth of him beneath his jacket sleeves, and heard his breathing steady and settle.

“There was an accident,” he muttered, as though embarrassed to admit it, “in my… well, you'll see. I need your help.”

“You need to go to hospital, or at least the walk-in centre. I'm not …”

“You're just the person I need.” He stepped back away from me, and I let go my hold on his arms. My hands felt empty without him and I involuntarily took a step towards him. He seemed please that I had followed him, even that one step, and he took another, looking over his shoulder to see where he was going. “I've got a first aid kit, just over here, in my … box. I just need you to put the stuff on my hands. Yes? As easy as that. You don't need to be a medic to do first aid.” His accent was more pronounced as he tried to persuade me. I started walking with him and he skipped like a giddy child, travelling mainly sideways as he kept turning back to me to check I was still with him. He kept chattering all the way: “I knew you were helpful. Do you like helping people? Well, you're good at helping people, with the, erm, picking things up – good at finding things. And the first aid, you know, resuscitation and all that.”

I was glad when he stopped talking, still not sure what to make of this peculiar man that I kept meeting in the park.

We were standing on a gravel path, one side open to the park, the other bordered by shrubs and bushes that grew up against the utilitarian brick building that I had always assumed held the park-keepers' equipment. We were outside a wooden structure, painted a scruffy blue, only as wide as the double doors directly in front of us.

“This is it.” he said.

I turned from my examination of the box and found him watching me, a quirky smile trying to appear on his serious-looking face.

“Do we need a key?” I asked, having noted the lock.

“Yes! Yes, a key,” he shrugged with his injured hands, “I'm afraid you'll have to take it out of my pocket. Here, in my waistcoat.” He elbowed his jacket out of the way.

I carefully pulled at the outer fabric of the waistcoat pocket, pulling the weight of the key away from contact with his body. I paused, and with a sharp intake of breath he turned his head, looking far away over his other shoulder. I wondered if he had felt the surprising intimacy of the moment, as I had.

The key was warm this time, like banked fires and the touch of another person.

Approaching the blue box, I eyed up the size of the thing, and decided there wasn't going to be much room for the both of us inside. “You stay out here,” I turned back to talk to him as I unlocked the door and pushed it open, “just tell me where the first aid kit is and I'll bring it out to you. But promise me that after I've had a look at your hands you'll go and see a doctor.”

He stepped forwards, pushing me ahead of him through the slim door. The sly smile was trying to make an appearance on his face again as he spoke, “I promise, you can come with me to meet a doctor.”

I raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief.

“Come on,” he said, pushing alongside me, “plenty of room inside for both of us.

 

It wasn't exactly what I had imagined the inside of the park-keepers' building to look like. Beyond the square of the blue box the room seemed to have little relation to the shape of the building I'd seen outside, and certainly didn't contain any of the usual grounds maintenance equipment.

After waiting a while for our eyes to adjust to the more gloomy lighting inside he huffed his way past me, and I turned to look for somewhere to put the key that I was still clutching in my hand. There was a plain hook on the wall, a little over head height, just the right size to slip the eye of the key over, so I left it there, swaying gently as I finally loosed it from my fingers, before turning to enter the main part of the room.

He stood like a showman, a ringmaster, next to the console in the middle of the room. He spun round what was clearly his space, his frock coat flapping, red lining flashing in the dimness, arms gesturing to the room.

I noticed his hands were shaking a little and he was still holding them stiffly, despite the extravagance of his movements, so I got down to business.

“Show me where the first aid kit is then, let's sort out those hands.”

He finished his twirl with a frown on his face, glaring at me as though I was not following the script. Such expressive eyebrows, even with the hair partially burnt off. After a moment's consideration he pulled himself together with a snort then pointed at the central console.

“There, press that button. It should release a hatch below.”

He turned his back on me and clumped his way around the main area, scuffing his boots on the metal flooring, as I struggled to open the compartment, then rummaged around in the box for anything that looked familiar.

“What am I looking for?” I called after him. When I got no reply I stood up so I could face him across the central unit. “I am trying to help you here, you're going to need to help me first.”

He actually looked humbled for the first time since I'd met him, as though realising he needed to be a bit more human in his interactions. “There should be an orange tube,” he conceded.

I had just found the orange tube when he came and knelt down on the floor next to where I was sorting through his first aid kit. Once down at floor level he rearranged himself so he was sitting, one leg bent beneath him, the other foot flat on the floor with his upright knee a barrier between us.

“There're no instructions on this,” I said, examining the tube, “do I just rub it on? How much do I need?”

“Just a blob on each hand.”

“Hold your hands out then.”

He was like a frightened child, torn between not wanting my help but knowing he couldn't do it by himself.

“So what happened?” I asked, hoping the conversation would distract him. “You said you had an accident. Did you blow something up?”

“You could say that,” he answered with a wry smile. “I'm not sure what happened, I woke up down there.” He nodded towards the lower section behind me, and I could make out trailing wires and scorch marks on the floor. As though to emphasise the point a few sparks flew in the gloom.

“Well,” I said, wiping the excess cream off my hands with my hanky, “we had definitely better get you to a doctor. It sounds as though you were knocked out as well as burning your hands.” I turned to replace the first aid kit into its cubby hole as he got to his feet. I could see that he was rubbing his own hands now, redistributing the cream. It had obviously worked very quickly as he clearly already had a better range of motion in them and they didn't seem to pain him too much. He had regained some of his earlier energy as well, and as I stood ready to leave he looked like he was bursting to tell me something.

“Ah! Well, we are already with one.” he announced. “That's who I am, I am The Doctor.”

“The Doctor?” I looked at him disbelieving. “That sounds like something out of a Hammer Horror film.” I put on a faux-scary voice, “The Doctor will see you know, wah, ha, ha, haaa!”

He didn't look impressed.

“What?” I queried, jokingly. “Do you always use the definite article? Maybe its THE doctor with a capital T. Just one for the whole of the world.”

“Well, I am the only one, and I have been known to save the whole planet.” he preened.

“I can't see you being responsible for 7 billion people. All those bunions, and piles, and halitosis.”

“I see your point. No really the caring type, am I. Well, most people just call me 'Doctor'.”

“Oh, no prenom, no article, just 'Doctor'.” I was teasing him now. To be honest I was getting a little tired of his dramatics, and couldn't believe that this man had ever had the patience to study long enough to get a doctorate, either medical or otherwise. “That makes it sound like the people talking to you are delicate nurses in a 1950s medical drama. 'Yes, Doctor, no Doctor, where should I put this thermometer, Doctor?'” I falsettoed.

The high energy he seemed to hold within him as a background hum to his personality was terrifying when he was angry. He seemed much bigger to me as he shouted, and I slipped and fell as I tried to get away from him. My hand was still clasped around the railing that I had backed into and I managed to pull myself up and head along the nearest gantry, thankfully the one that led to the door we had come in by.

He didn't follow me, had stopped with just one foot on the bridge I was escaping across. I daren't look at his face, to see what emotion it displayed, conscious only of my own fear, my own instinctive reaction to the shouts of a man bigger and stronger than myself. I was suddenly aware of the vulnerability I had taken on myself, going with a strange man into a strange building, alone. I chided myself for my stupidity, and finally swung the wooden door open inwards as I hurtled myself out of the box.

He must have come to the door after me. I heard his voice as I ran away. “Stop.” I heard him say, “I didn't mean...”

But I had gone.


	4. Chapter 4

The next Tuesday Sarah dragged me out of the house and into town on the bus. I usually try to avoid going into the town centre where at all possible, but it was that or sit at home watching inane quiz shows or 1970s American drama programmes. I knew I wasn't going to be going to the park on my own any time soon.

I hadn't noticed the blue box by the bus station before. I must have stopped when I saw it, Sarah tugged at my arm and asked what I was looking at.

“Have you seen that before?” I asked her, “The blue box.”

“Oh its an old police box isn't it? I don't think I've noticed it before, it must have been behind that old warehouse they knocked down. Must have been there for years though. I think they're all decommissioned now. The police all have radios, they don't need a phone box to call the station anymore.”

My mind kept wandering back to it as we navigated our way through the afternoon crowds.

 

After that, I kept on seeing them everywhere. Sarah had made it her mission to get me out of the house, after she'd heard I got Tuesday afternoons for myself. Most the time she dragged me into town, but after a couple of weeks I pointed out that being surrounded by crowds of people wasn't exactly relaxing for me. To be honest, that was true, but I was getting more and more freaked out by that damned blue box showing up in a slightly different place each week.

The second week, it had still been near the bus station, but on the other side of the road to where I'd seen it before. Sarah didn't seem to notice – she was busy chatting about this new coffee shop she wanted to try out.

The coffee shop was really nice, to be fair, but the next week as I was watching the shoppers pass by the window, whilst I was nursing a hot chocolate, I saw the blue box wedged in the alley between Marks and Spencer and the big shopping centre the other side of the pedestrianised street outside.

I tried to make my excuses when we parted at the bus stop at the end of my street, trying to come up with some excuse, without sounding like I'd gone completely nuts – 'sorry Sarah, I don't want to come out in public anymore because I keep seeing a blue shed that keeps turning up, like a mysterious shop that sells the protagonist an ancient curséd object but isn't there the next week.' I didn't think it would go down well if I told her that!

So the next week she dragged me down to the Non-conformist hall on the street next but one from hers. “It'll be fine,” she said, “you don't need to believe in God or anything. We're just helping out with the charity boxes for Christmas. It'll be good for you to meet some other people who have free time on Tuesday afternoons.”

I didn't mind the work, even if it was volunteering. Easy enough, just checking the contents of the boxes against a check-list, then taping them shut. The people weren't exactly who I wanted to develop friendships with, your usual mix of busy-bodies and do-gooders, with the compulsory lone person of colour, and the guy who must have been representing people with special educational needs.

The last straw was when I headed to the toilets, though.

There were no lights on in the corridor off the lobby and I patted at the wall several times, looking for the light switch. I found it eventually, and turned to look for the door to the ladies, and there it was.

“Oh! Shhh..sugar.” I quickly ducked my head back round the door to see if anyone else was around.

“You're following me, aren't you.” I wagged my finger at the box as though it was a naughty dog peeing on the carpet. I approached it slowly, definitely not sure if it was real or I was just imagining things. Not entirely sure that I wanted to get too close, especially if it was real.

I noticed that the blue paintwork was grimy and scraped, and the small glass panes in the windows were mismatched. I watched my hand as I reached out toward it, waiting for … I don't know what I was waiting for, an electric shock maybe, or just my hand passing through it like I was a ghost. Footsteps in the hall outside disturbed me and I half jogged back to the door I had come from, shutting it behind me and turning my back on it.

“Is everything alright?” Jeanette, the leader of the pack was all vehement goodness.

“Yes, yes, fine. Just fine.” I could tell I hadn't sold her on that. “You may want to avoid the toilets for a bit,” I continued, “bit of a dodgy tummy.”

“Oh! Oh, I see.” she carefully took my arm, and I didn't mind if it meant she stayed away from that corridor, “lets go and have a soothing cup of tea then, peppermint, I think.”

 

I got used to seeing it every Tuesday, and began to make a game of guessing where it was likely to be. Side alleys, demolition sites, next to the big concrete bus shelter at the busy crossroads. I began to notice things about it, like how it was always level regardless of the surrounding terrain, and it seemed to have its own weather, or brought the weather with it when it landed. It would be bone dry on the shiny wet street after an earlier rain shower, or steaming with melting frost on a mild afternoon.

The week before Christmas I hadn't had a chance to see it. Sarah had picked me up from work at lunchtime and we'd gone straight to her house to wrap presents and have a bit of a Christmas do together. We'd opened a bottle of wine, so when I said it was time for me to go I insisted I'd be okay walking back on my own. I cut through the park, keeping to the well-lit path in the early dusk of the afternoon, safe enough with all the other people still walking through.

It wasn't until I was approaching the old brick building that I remembered I hadn't seen my stalker that day, and I was strangely disappointed when it wasn't up against the wall where I had first seen it. There was a gap in the bushes where it had been, and I stopped for a moment to see if I could make out any sign of a doorway in the wall, but the bricks were covered in a pristine patina of grime.

It caught me by surprise when I did see it, just round the corner in the gloomy patch halfway between two street lights. I slowed as I approached it, letting a cyclist pass by between me and the blue box, waiting until they were out of sight before I walked up to the structure that I was sure didn't usually live there.

The door was open.

Only a little, not enough that most people walking by would have noticed it.

I didn't know what that meant.

I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to know what that meant.

I stood there dithering, until my mind was made up by the approach of a hoard of students from the nearby sixth-form college.

I turned my back and continued homeward.


	5. Chapter 5

Christmas day was a Tuesday.

No school, no work in the morning, no respite care in the afternoon.

We went to mum and dad's for the day. Alex coped quite well until lunch-time. Cooked food was obviously not acceptable for a lunch meal, and it got picked at and very little eaten. The telly was switched on as soon as we got down from the table – thank god for 24 hour cartoon channels – and I helped dad do the washing up while mum had a sit down.

It wasn't until all the dishes were clean and put away that we noticed that Alex had gone. In all the excitement of our arrival in the morning, the front door hadn't been locked.

“We'll check the house first,” dad announced, “double-check, to be sure.” But I knew I needed to be outside, looking for my child who I so desperately didn't want to lose, feeling guilty about my earlier thoughts of missing my afternoon off this week.

Mum helped me find my coat, while dad looked in the usual hiding places upstairs. “They knocked down that old factory back in the summer,” she said quietly, “Alex was over there every day in the summer, watching the bulldozers. You might want to look there first.”

So Christmas day found me sneaking through the zigzag wire where the local kids went to play, out between the spoil heaps of dusty orange brick, rubbing my hands together to keep warm, my breath steaming like dragons'.

My phone rang as I reached the fence on the diagonal corner of the plot. They'd found Alex, in next door's garden, stroking the cat. Relieved, I told dad I was heading back, I turned to retrace my steps and there it was.

Somehow I hadn't expected to see the blue box today, as though Christmas meant that all normal activity just didn't happen. Normal! I'm not sure what's happening to me for me to think that being shadowed by an inanimate object – only on Tuesdays mind you! – is normal.

The easiest way back was right past it, and I noticed as I approached that it was perfectly level again, despite having come to rest on the slope of one of the piles of rubble.

The side with the door was in the lee of the wind, and I stopped there for a while, taking what shelter I could from the bitter cold. I even leaned my back against it, my earlier adrenaline rush and relief at a found child giving me a confidence I'd not felt when I'd seen it before. Or maybe it was just because it was Christmas. Nothing is normal at Christmas.

I didn't feel like rushing back, back to responsibilities and fear. Back to painful love and failure. I dug my hands in my pockets to keep them warm, and found a smooth metal object in one, warm like the setting sun in summer, baked pavements, strong arms beneath raggedy sleeves.

I didn't think as I put the key in the lock. I went in and hung the key up on the hook again, and walked across the gantry to the centre of the room.

 

There was a hint of smoke in the air, the smell of burnt metal. I had a sudden memory of Gramps holding an ancient torch while trying to find the fuse box after their decrepit toaster had finally given up the ghost and tripped the fuse for the house. And just like all those years ago, it was dark and gloomy in here, the only light coming from the neon above the main console, the rest of the room in shadow.

The railing under my hand was gently warm, and I followed it around until I reached the first set of stairs down to the lower level. I had my foot on the first step when I realised the metal was cold under my hand, almost icy to the touch. I backed up and tried the handrail the other side of the gap. Warm again. I followed the warmth around the central island, and at the next set of steps down it stayed warm.

There was a little light spilling from the structure in the centre of the room, that apparently went right down to this lower ground level. I could make out his body, lying in the area where I had seen the damage the last time I'd been in here.

“Dammit!” I rushed down the last of the steps and paused only long enough to check that I wouldn't get electrocuted myself when I touched him.

“I could do with some more light,” I found myself muttering to myself, or to anyone who might hear. I didn't have time enough to wonder who or what turned up the glow from the central column, or the blue roundels on the walls. I was busy remembering my CPR training from the first aid course last year, busy feeling for a pulse, finding none, and desperately hoping that I didn't screw this up as I started chest compressions.

I didn't know what I was expecting, I hadn't seen anyone resuscitated in real life before, and on the TV the patient was always hooked up to a heart monitor, with its convenient double-beep to tell you they were alive again. I certainly wasn't expecting the slight luminescence on his skin that I didn't really notice until it faded. I was still pounding on his chest when he groaned, and I paused, long enough to see his chest rise, to see him turn his head slightly, to see him trying to crack one eye open and look in my direction.

I sat back on my heels, relief washing over me. He seemed to have passed out again. I leant forward to feel for a pulse, to check his breathing. I saw his burnt hands and singed eyebrows.

“I'm going to call an ambulance, ok,” I said to him, not sure if he could hear me. I checked my phone. “I just need to go outside, I've got no signal here. You're going to be alright. I'm going to call an ambulance, then I'll be back with you. Just hold on.”

The temperature outside was much colder than inside. I looked at my phone again, checking for a signal, when I heard the wooden door shut behind me. A deep rumbling started up, and a screech like giant's nails down a blackboard. I turned in time to see the blue box dematerialising, fading in and out of view until it had gone.

I felt abandoned.


	6. Chapter 6

New Years day I spent at home with Alex. The weather had stayed cold and we made a nest of cushions and blankets in the living room. We watched TV together, and drank hot chocolate, and for a while my life felt as though it could be normal. Until Alex's dad turned up, trying to act as though he wasn't hungover. As usual he was all apologies and promises. “A New Year” he said.

Alex had already stormed up the stairs and slammed the door. So much for being normal for a while.

For once I didn't let Josh insinuate his was into the house, and refused to let his ranting in the street embarrass me.

 

The already cold temperatures dropped below freezing for much of the next week, so when the snow started falling on Monday evening, no-one was surprised that it settled. Just a dusting had covered the ground on Tuesday morning when I took Alex to school and finally made my way into work, late again.

It snowed again during the morning, gently at first, but as I set out for my afternoon stroll to the park it was getting heavier, the bulbous flakes falling sedately. The park was empty, and I took shelter in the bandstand to watch the wintry landscape. I just stood there, watching the giant flakes falling, watching as it smoothed over the sharp nooks and crannies of the bare park. It looked so pretty and soft, like a huge blanket, and I tried to forget how cold and wet it felt.

It was so quiet, like hiding your head under the duvet. Everything seemed so far away. Even the giant's fingernails sound seemed muted, although the final thud echoed clearly against the bare ceiling and floor of the bandstand.

I didn't want to look at it at first.

I didn't want it to be there.

I didn't want it not to be there.

The blue box that seemed to have a mind of its own, that followed me around until it got what it wanted, then abandoned me. It reminded me of Josh, and I didn't want it to.

I had to look eventually.

It was still there. It hadn't become anything else, like a bowl of petunias or a whale. It still looked like an obsolete police box. I wondered why it had chosen that face.

I studied it, walking around it once, trailing my fingers over the wooden panelled walls. I thought I could feel it thrumming beneath my hand, the echo of something in the distance.

The door was shut today, and didn't open.

'Advice and assistance obtainable immediately' the sign said. 'Pull to open'. Why pull to open, I thought, remembering the door that had opened inwards. Shouldn't it be push? My fingers traced over the smaller handle next to the sign and I took a deep breath before pulling.

Inside the cupboard was a phone. An ordinary looking phone, albeit archaic with a genuine rotary dial.

I was reluctant to pick up the handset, in the same way that I was reluctant to knock on the door. Sometimes its easier to not ask for help, in case the answer is no.

I was just reaching out to shut the cupboard door when I saw it, shining silver at the bottom of the cupboard. This time the key felt of nothing when I picked it up. Not empty, but restrained, carefully neutral, as though not wanting to influence my decision.

The inside was just as I remembered it, a fantastic cross between sci-fi space ship and cosy library. I didn't call out as I walked across the gantry to the middle of the room. There was no sign of anyone else in there and I took the opportunity to look around, for once not hiding my curiosity. I walked around the upper level, saw the airlock door and overladen bookshelves, passed by strange symbols and the familiar detritus of an abandoned workbench.

I was directly above the area where I'd found him injured when he spoke, his voice coming from the other side of the central console, not below me as I had initially thought.

“She's slightly telepathic, you know.” He walked out from behind the column and stopped when he'd seen that I saw him. “The Tardis, my ship.” He held himself still, contained. Just an upwards tilt of his chin as he finished.

“There's more of it on the inside.” I said.

“The same can be said of any sentient being.”

I wasn't sure which of us was being examined. We were tiptoeing around each other. I wanted to pass the test, to be deemed worthy. He looked like he was being on his best behaviour, as though being overtly himself would mean failure.

“It travels in time as well, doesn't it?” I asked. A single nod from him in reply. “Are we back in sync with each other now? Are we going in the same direction?” I started to make my way towards him. “I mean, if I meet you again, it'll be the you that hasn't happened yet, not one from before I met you, or anything?”

“I do usually try and meet people in the right order.” He said haughtily. “There are a few … exceptions. But, yes, if we meet again it'll be future me and future you.”

I decided not to ask about the exceptions, didn't want to push. Apart from it probably being quite complicated, he seemed to shut down all emotion after his verbal stumble.

He stayed where he was as I approached, and I stopped when I was face to face with him, standing at the start of the bridge that led to the door.

“Let me see,” I said to him, and held out my hands. After a brief pause and a raised eyebrow he brought his hands out from where he'd been holding them behind his back. I gently took hold of his wrists, turning his hands to examine them as I had before. The skin was a little pink in places, but they were well healed, and I looked at his face and saw that his eyebrows were looking back to normal. He tugged his hands away from my grasp and stood back, leaving the way across the bridge clear.

“I guess you don't need my help anymore then.” I tried to keep the emotion from my voice.

“Me? Need YOUR help?” he snorted.

I turned away from him, not wanting him to see the tremble in my lip, or the redness of my cheeks that I could feel growing. Why did I ever think that he would want me around? He'd got what he needed from me. Why had he bothered coming back?

I had reached the police box part of the ship when his voice stopped me. “I told you she was telepathic, didn't I.”

I didn't want to turn back to him, but I didn't want to leave.

“When I blew myself up, the Tardis tried to obey my last thought to her. But I was unconscious, so she didn't have anyone to guide her. That's why you kept bumping into me in the wrong order.”

His voice was deep and low, I could feel him standing just behind me, I felt him as his fingertips brushed the round of my shoulder, tentative, unsure.

“Yes, she tried to help. But I didn't ask her to help me.”

I could see him now as he slowly circled in front of me. I wiped at my eyes, trying to catch the tears before they fell.

He tenderly grabbed my shoulders with both hands and tilted his head to look into my downturned face. “I wanted to help YOU.”


End file.
